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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206685">Here, now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/handfuloftime/pseuds/handfuloftime'>handfuloftime</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter, Fluff, Gen, Pining, Pre-Canon, unrequited love two times over because that's just crozier's life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:42:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/handfuloftime/pseuds/handfuloftime</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In Van Diemen’s Land, Crozier and Ross go fishing and talk about what the future holds.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Captain Francis Crozier &amp; Sir James Clark Ross</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Here, now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for The Terror Decameron prompt "smart remarks". Originally posted on <a href="https://handfuloftime.tumblr.com/post/615243567431041024/here-now-in-van-diemens-land-crozier-and-ross">tumblr</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Francis has rowed them far enough up the Derwent that the ships’ masts are no longer visible over the distant hills when James asks, “Are you really thinking of staying?”</p>
<p>Francis rests the oars, resisting the urge to drop his head into his hands. “Christ, James, will you give it a rest?” But James’s face is so earnest and so worried that it’s almost laughable. He sighs and says, “I’m not going to jump ship, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re stuck with me for the duration.”</p>
<p>“Glad to hear it, old man,” James says, his smile returning, and Francis hopes that will be the end of it.</p>
<p>And it is, for a while. But after they’ve reached calmer waters and are rowing peacefully along a bank lined with scrubby trees, James says, “And after? Once we’re back from the Pole?”</p>
<p>Peevish, Francis almost says, <i>Yes, you’ve got me, I’m going to resign my command, stay in the colonies, and raise sheep.</i> It would be worth it just for the look on James’s face. But the words stick in his throat. He can almost picture it: a decent plot of land, not too far from town—he could supervise the magnetic observations, after Kay goes home—a farm. If farming proved profitable enough, he could even bring his sisters out. He could marry—</p>
<p>“You’re very preoccupied by this,” he manages instead. It stings, a little: is it so hard for James to believe he won’t just desert him?</p>
<p>James gives him a pointed look. “Frank, Lady Franklin is trying to sell you an island, if you’ll recall.”</p>
<p>“Wants to maroon me on an island, more like. Besides, I hear it’s covered in penguins.”</p>
<p>“And I’m sure you’ll have them laying like chickens in no time. Or turn them into a proper boat crew.”</p>
<p>Francis rolls his eyes to heaven. “You really think I’m so tempted by a lump of penguin-infested rock? Offshore of a penal colony?”</p>
<p>“Well, I’d imagine that there are—” a hint of that damnable grin— “other considerations.”</p>
<p>Something sour twists in Francis’s gut. He’d hardly expected that James had noticed. Hadn’t wanted him to notice, especially when he can effortlessly win a smile that it would take Francis half an hour of labored conversation to earn. The very thought of it gnaws at him. </p>
<p>Rather than reply, he kicks the dip net over to James. “Go on, make yourself useful for a change.” James smirks at him, picks up the net, and settles back in the stern of the boat. Francis takes up the oars again, keeps the boat on a steady course upriver. Tries not to brood.</p>
<p>And indeed it’s hard to brood, out here. The sun comes out, the strange countryside drifts by, and in a matter of minutes James has caught two fish and a peculiar eel. </p>
<p>A pair of curious birds dip overhead; Francis wishes he had thought to bring a gun. James lifts his head to watch them. He’s taken off his coat and rolled his sleeves to his elbows; the sun blazes on his hair. Lovely.</p>
<p>Francis catches himself staring and looks away hurriedly, and feels like he’s snatched his hand back from a flame not quite quickly enough. </p>
<p>“And anyway,” he says, like picking at a scab, “Is that not what you’re planning?”</p>
<p>James looks back at him. “How’s that?”</p>
<p>“You’re worrying over me, when you told me you’re thinking of retiring from the service when we get back to England.” He could go on: so we won’t sail together again, no matter what I do.</p>
<p>“I think my delightful future father-in-law will have my head if I don’t,” James says airily. “Provided he doesn’t die of apoplexy when I return and haven’t been crushed to death by an iceberg.” Then, laughter gone, “And I’ll have stood on the north and south poles. What will there be left to do, after that?”</p>
<p>“There’s the Passage,” Francis says. Always, there’s the Passage.</p>
<p>“Maybe I’ll leave that one to you, old man.”</p>
<p>“I thought I was staying in Hobart-town and raising sheep,” Francis scoffs. “Get your facts straight, Ross.”</p>
<p>“Hmm. No,” James says, “I don’t think so.”</p>
<p>That brings Francis up short. “You don’t?”</p>
<p>James fixes him with that particular look of his, the one that always seems to have some force of magnetism behind it. Impossible to look away. “You, quit the Arctic? You’ll be there long after I’ve given it up.”</p>
<p>“You’re very certain,” Francis sighs.</p>
<p>“I know you, Frank,” James says. “And you’re a miserable bastard who won’t be happy unless you’re freezing to death in an Arctic winter.”</p>
<p>The words are said lightly enough to take any sting out of them, but Francis still scowls at him. “Hardly.”</p>
<p>“No?” James says. “Well, where would you be happy, then?” </p>
<p>Francis thinks—oh, he thinks of any number of things. A flag, a knighthood, a pension enough for his sisters to live on. Tracing the last link of the Passage. The aurora soaring over the wintering ships. Sophia’s smile. The sunlight warm on James’s hair.</p>
<p>“The south magnetic pole, for a start,” he says, eventually.</p>
<p>“I think we can manage that,” James says with an irresistible grin. He smacks Francis’s shoulder, then flops back down in the bottom of the boat and folds his hands behind his head. “And time enough to think about the future afterwards.”</p>
<p>Amen to that. Francis picks up the oars again: the boat is starting to drift towards the bank. He only has time for a couple of strokes before James bolts upright and grabs for the net. “Look! A platypus!”</p>
<p>“Where?” Francis asks, squinting against the dazzling sunlight on the water. </p>
<p>“Just there.” He points, and Francis catches sight of a small, dull shape only a stone’s throw from the boat. James leans out over the side, the net in his hand. “I can almost reach—”</p>
<p>“Wait, I’ll—” Francis grabs for the oars, and as he does the boat rocks and there’s a terrific splash.</p>
<p>Typical.</p>
<p>He sets the oars down carefully, shifts to the stern, and looks down at James floundering in the river. He still has the net, but the platypus is nowhere to be seen. There’s river scum in his hair. “Ah,” Francis says. “A new form of aquatic life, how marvelous. I’m sure Dr. Hooker will want it pickled in a jar,” he adds, as James shakes wet hair out of his eyes and glares at him.</p>
<p>It’s lucky that they’re far upstream of the observatory, because there’s only the platypus to be scandalized at the spectacle of a captain of the Royal Navy dragging his second-in-command into the river and trying to duck his head underwater.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>While the Antarctic expedition was in Hobart in 1840, Lady Franklin and Crozier had a running joke that she would sell him <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsey_Island">Betsey Island</a>, which she had recently purchased. According to her journal, "[Crozier] seems hardly to know what to make of it all, or Captain Ross either, who looks so comically serious and meditative when it is mentioned, that I begin to think he suspects Captain Crozier will desert him when they return from the Magnetic. This at least is part of the standard joke on the subject." (Quoted in Frank Debenham, "The <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i> at Hobart," <i>Polar Record</i> 3, no. 23 (1942), 473).</p></blockquote></div></div>
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